Find Us On the Show Floor

Come by our Booth 801 to see how Autodesk tools can help connect your world, from creative workflows to collaborating with teams in different time zones. We’re bringing customers and partners to show how Autodesk tools are used to create out-of-this-world VR experiences, and our own Autodesk experts to give first-hand demos all day, every day of the show.

Press

Partner

Thanks to our partners

Beyond Media and Entertainment: How AR & VR are changing design

Tuesday, August 1, 9:30 - 10:00AM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Our customers tell us immersive experiences will help them perceive their designs as though they’re physically present: allowing creators and consumers to better predict and make more informed decisions about space and artistry. Tomorrow's designers, makers, and artists will simply work with their CG data through AR and VR to get the job done better and faster. As a world leader in 3D design software and deep knowledge of Media & Entertainment, Autodesk, is in a unique position to leverage new creative immersive technologies to build tools that will usher in the Future of Making Things.

Joel Pennington, Product Manager

Joel drives Autodesk’s AR & VR strategy. In 2014 Joel joined a team to lead research and design for democratizing AR & VR technology for Architects, Engineers, Construction Professionals, and Manufacturing companies. He was hired at Autodesk Singapore in 2010 to head design for MotionBuilder and lead a multi-year collaboration with James Cameron's company, Lightstorm, to rebuild Autodesk’s software for the Avatar sequels.

Prior to joining to Autodesk, Joel spent 10 years working on Virtual Production features for Disney and AAA game titles for Electronic Arts. He held Management, Art, and Technical positions throughout. Joel graduated from the Vancouver Film School in 2001. His short film, A Cheese Without Cause, won several awards at film festivals throughout North America.

The Future of Storytelling

Tuesday, August 1, 10:00 - 11:00AM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Story is powerful. The Narrativa team at Autodesk discovers and develops ideas that empower all storytellers. We look at the function of story for our species in the past, today and in the future. Knowledge-based systems, machine intelligence, and generative methods are accelerating and soon will enable impactful stories to be told by anyone. Media and Entertainment creatives are leading the way, inspiring manufacturing, design and architectural professionals to contribute their story of purpose and destiny.

Hilmar Koch, R&D Director

Hilmar Koch recently joined Autodesk as R&D director of the Future of Storytelling. Prior to Autodesk Hilmar worked at Lucasfilm / Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), where he forged a collaborative bridge between game and narrative entertainment, games and narrative content creators, and ILM’s global studios. While there, he pushed leveraged cutting edge technology as Head of Computer Graphics (CG) and Director of Virtual Production and Director of the Advanced Development Group.

Rogue One’s Virtual Sets: The Future of Production with ILM

Tuesday, August 1, 11:00 - 12:00PM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Industrial Light & Magic Chief Creative Officer and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Visual Effects Supervisor, John Knoll, will discuss how Maya and the company's virtual production technologies played a key role in the film's production and how he sees it impacting the future of production.

John Knoll, Chief Creative Officer at Industrial Light & Magic

In 1986, John Knoll joined Industrial Light & Magic as a Technical Assistant and was soon promoted to Motion Control Camera Operator for Captain EO. After three years of operating, John was called upon to work on the ground breaking digital effects for The Abyss, a film that saw the first use of Photoshop, which he had co-developed with his brother Thomas. Since that time, John has been promoted to Visual Effects Supervisor helming the visual effects on more than twenty feature films and commercials and most recently Chief Creative Officer of the studio. His film background coupled with an advanced understanding of digital technologies has made John a much sought-after supervisor having been honored with an Oscar and a BAFTA Award for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and six additional visual effects Academy Award nominations as well as five additional BAFTA nominations.

John’s supervisory credits also include the Star Wars Prequels, Episodes I, II, and III, Mission to Mars, Deep Blue Sea, Star Trek: First Contact, Rango and Mission: Impossible, Ghost Protocol among others. Prior to his promotion to Chief Creative Officer in May of 2013 he served as the Visual Effects Supervisor on Guillermo del Toro’s science fiction epic, Pacific Rim for which he received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects. Most recently, John was nominated for an Academy Award for Visual Effects for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first film in the Star Wars stand-alone series and one for which John served as both an Executive Producer and Visual Effects Supervisor. The film, based on a concept John created and also earned him nominations from both BAFTA and Visual Effects Society.

John’s interest in filmmaking began at an early age. Having a keen interest in visual effects, he was mesmerized by the original Star Wars film. During a visit to ILM in 1978 he was able to observe first-hand the world of visual effects. Inspired to learn more, John attended the USC School of Cinema and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema Production, while freelancing as a Modelmaker at a variety of Los Angeles-based production facilities.

During his last year at USC, John took an advanced animation class where he built a motion control system from an Oxberry animation stand, an Apple II computer, a CNC milling machine controller, and a bunch of industrial surplus stepper motors. Impressed by the student film that was generated from this class project, ILM hired John as a Technical Assistant for motion control photography. Greatly impressed by visits to ILM's newly founded computer graphics department, John took up computer graphics as a hobby. Teaming up with his brother who was working on his Doctoral Thesis in computer vision at the University of Michigan, the Knoll brothers created Photoshop in 1987.

John is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and currently serves on the Board of Governors representing the Visual Effects Branch.

Virtual Production to VR with CBS Digital

Presentation Description

Craig Weiss and Jim Berndt of CBS Digital talk about creating the Stranger Things VR experience, and the convergence of virtual production and VR.

Craig Weiss, Executive Creative Director at CBS Digital

The founder and executive creative director and of CBS Digital, Craig Weiss has been a recognized leader in the visual-effects industry for more than 23 years, and has built the division from the ground up. CBS Digital has become one of the most widely acclaimed and creative producers of visual effects and post-production services in the Television industry.

Nominated for five Emmy™ Awards and multiple Visual Effects Society Awards, Craig continues to demonstrate measurable results with innovative excellence. He recently led the development of new virtual-set technology called Parallax, as well as CBS Digital’s VR platform, both of which have been rapidly adopted by such entertainment industry leaders as ABC, Nickelodeon, Fox and Netflix.

Craig serves on the Engineering Emmy committee and was a founding alternate board member of The Visual Effects Society. Craig continues to oversee all work at CBS Digital.

Jim Berndt, FX TD at CBS Digital

Jim Berndt began his career as a visual effects animator after graduating from Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Los Angeles. Jim was a technical consultant for IBM before joining CBS Digital in 2006, where his work began with the restoration of all 186 episodes of the original Star Trek series. At CBS Digtial, he was nominated for a VES award for his work on ABC’s Pushing Dasies. Recently, Jim has technically supervised CBS Digital’s Virtual Sets platform for FOX’s Last Man on Earth. He made his first foray into virtual reality as the technical lead on CBS Digital’s acclaimed VR experience for Netflix’s Stranger Things. His expertise in software tools and crafting his own original processes and techniques has been instrumental in allowing CBS Digital to build unique

Character Creation for Beauty and the Beast with Framestore

Tuesday, August 1, 2:00 - 3:00PM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Learn about Framestore’s character creation on Beauty and the Beast and how the team used new techniques to bring household objects Lumiere, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts to life convincingly with photo-real look development using Maya, Shotgun and Arnold.

Adrien Saint Girons, CG Supervisor at Framestore

French born Adrien lived in both the US and France in his early years before moving to the UK to study a BA (Hons) in Computer Visualization and Animation at Bournemouth University.

Combining his creative artistry with a passion for the technical processes of creating high-end 3D imagery, Adrien moved from his first role as an ATD at MPC into the lighting team on The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian. After working as a Generalist at the Mill, Adrien moved into LookDev roles at MPC, working on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, Clash of the Titans, and Surrogates. Making the move to ILM's Singapore studio saw Adrien move from senior lighter to Lighting CG Supervisor on a variety of prolific feature films including Battleship, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Avengers, Strange Magic, Pacific Rim, Star Trek Into Darkness, Warcraft and Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Fluent in both English and French, Adrien joined Framestore's Montreal office in November 2015, jumping into the role of CG Supervisor on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. He is currently working on the
highly-anticipated Blade Runner 2049. In his spare time he unwinds with 3D printing, climbing and playing the drums.

Scaling Beyond Four Walls with Jellyfish Pictures

Tuesday, August 1, 3:00 - 4:00PM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Join Jellyfish CTO Jeremy Smith and Eoin Bailey, Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft Azure, to learn how Jellyfish Pictures is tapping into the power of the cloud for rendering purposes, creating virtual offices and making their production pipeline more efficient.

Jeremy Smith, CTO at Jellyfish Pictures

Jeremy studied IT and VFX in Canada and later came to England where he joined Jellyfish Pictures. Over the past seven years he’s witnessed Jellyfish growth from an eight man team to a facility that houses over 200 members of staff in 3 locations. He has overseen and managed several company expansions to different locations, has re-imagined their pipeline using a hybrid of cloud-based and desktop based technologies, as well as the day to day running of the facilities, two screening rooms and a several editing suites. He is currently responsible for all technical management of the studio.

Smart Content: Empowering Creators to Work Smarter, Not Harder

Wednesday, August 2, 10:00 - 11:00AM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Demand for realistic context and complexity in visualization and storytelling is growing at an exponential rate, while deadlines are contracting. Smart Content will be there to help you populate your scene with environmental, decorative and active content that responds to its surroundings. Learn how Smart Content’s parametric, relational, behavioral and portable abilities will make static geometry a thing of the past.

Michael Spaw, Product Designer

Bringing over two and half decades of Max experience in feature films, games and design visualization, Michael joined the Max team as a product owner and designer in 2015. With a background in industrial design, he entertains a variety of interests, ranging from procedural graphics, CNC prototyping, and cooking. His day job keeps him busy designing new software tools as well as next generation workflows.

Evolving the Planet of the Apes with Weta Digital

Wednesday, August 2, 11:00 - 12:00PM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Join Anders Langlands to find out how Weta Digital created the world and characters in War for the Planet of the Apes, and how tools like Maya have played a role over the past 3 films in the series.

Anders Langlands, VFX Supervisor at Weta Digital

Anders Langlands is a Visual Effects Supervisor at Weta Digital where he recently finished War for the Planet of the Apes. His work focused on key battle sequences and the ape's hidden fortress environment. Anders joined Weta in 2016 after nearly 13 years at MPC. In 2014, Anders was nominated for a BAFTA Award for his work on X-Men: Day of Future Past and an Oscar in 2015 for his work on The Martian.

Anders has a degree in Computer Visualization and Animation from Bournemouth University and has a strong focus in physically based rendering and shading. In his spare time, he maintains alShaders, an open-source physically based shader library for Arnold. Other notable films in Anders’ filmography include Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Man of Steel and Wrath of the Titans.

How MPC Brought the Sea to Life in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Wednesday, August 2, 1:00 - 2:00PM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

For Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales MPC faced the creative challenge to produce highly believable ocean and water effects interacting with full-CG ships and characters. In this talk we present our approaches to animate, simulate and render these using our newly developed ocean toolkit and tighter integration of Autodesk Bifrost into our FX and rendering pipeline.

Kai Wolter, Lead Software Developer at MPC

Kai Wolter is a lead software developer at MPC London with a focus on FX and Crowds. He led the software development for Pirates of the Caribbean and most recently started his work as software supervisor on The Lion King. Kai received a Master degree in Computer Science from the University of Paderborn, Germany, in 2005, and has since then been working in the VFX industry on movies including Legend of the Guardians, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Jungle Book.

Panel: The Promise and Challenges of Embracing the Cloud

Wednesday, August 2, 2:00 - 3:00PM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Collaborative, efficient, distributed and scalable: these are just some of the realities of digital production today. Join a panel of technology experts including Nick Cannon (CTO, Walt Disney Studios), Simon Robinson (Co-founder & Chief Scientist, Foundry), and Don Parker (Vice President, Shotgun at Autodesk), moderated by industry veteran Phil Peterson, as they explore leveraging the cloud, the opportunities and the challenges, to meet these demands.

Phil Peterson, Senior Architect

Phil Peterson is a Senior Architect at Autodesk with more than 20 years of industry experience advancing technology for animation and visual effects production. Prior to joining Autodesk, he consulted leading studios and technology companies on digital studio architecture and technology strategy. He has held several key technology positions with Lucas companies including leading R&D for ILM, heading technology for Lucasfilm Animation in the US and Singapore, and as both Principal Engineer for ILM and Chief Architect for Lucasfilm. Phil has also served as CTO at Digital Domain and as SVP and CTO at ImageMovers Digital, and began his studio career at Mainframe Entertainment on the pioneering television series, Reboot!

Nick Cannon, CTO, Walt Disney Animation Studios

Nick Cannon is Chief Technology Officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios and prior to that held a variety of technology leadership roles with MPC for over 12 years. He started his career as a systems engineer consulting on large scale systems design across a mix of industries and then landed at Yahoo! before finding a home for his talents in visual effects and animation. Nick is a member of the Visual Effects Society’s Technology Committee and has led the VFX Reference Platform initiative since its inception.

Don Parker, Vice President, Shotgun @ Autodesk

Don Parker co-founded Shotgun Software in 2006 with a vision of developing a standardized production management and review system that would enable creative companies to manage projects across global locations more efficiently. Today more than 1,000 animation and visual effects studios have adopted Shotgun and contribute to its ongoing development. In June of 2014 Shotgun Software was acquired by Autodesk, and Parker currently oversees a global team on Shotgun development. Before founding Shotgun, Parker was a Pipeline Designer and Producer for a Walt Disney Pictures production company, where he led the development of an animated feature film production management system. Prior to that he worked as production and marketing leads at creative companies including Mekanism, Complete Pandemonium, Unicast and TBWA\Chiat\Day.

Presentation Description

Open@ADSK is an umbrella effort meant to help improve both Autodesk's use of, but also contribution to, open source software. It is based on taking the best practices of the open source community and applying them to internal product development in support of a more open and collaborative development model. Autodesk, like almost all companies, utilizes a lot of open source software, but we are still ramping up our efforts to more effectively participate and contribute back to the projects we rely on. This session will cover some of the things we've learned, as well as talk about our future directions in this area.

Guy Martin, Director, Open@ADSK

Guy Martin is Director of the Open@ADSK initiative at Autodesk, where he's responsible for overseeing the company's open source strategy, execution and collaborative projects, as well as representing the company in open source communities and organizations. He has over two decades of experience in the software industry, where he has consistently focused on helping companies understand, contribute to, and better leverage open source software. He has held senior open source roles with Samsung Research, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems, among others. He is a frequent speaker and attendee at open source conferences such as LinuxCon, Collaboration Summit, OSCON and All Things Open.

Arnold – Before and After

Wednesday, August 2, 4:00 - 5:00PM

Room 409B

Presentation Description

Arnold Development Manager Fred Servant walks us through the decisions and changes with the move from Arnold 4 to Arnold 5.

Frederic Servant, Arnold Development Manager

Frederic is Software Development Manager at Solid Angle and is based in London, where he looks over the Arnold core and plugins teams scattered around the globe. He was previously the main developer of the Arnold integration in Houdini. Prior to Solid Angle, Frederic worked as an R&D Engineer at The Mill in London and La Maison in Paris.

Jonah Friedman, Research Engineer, 3D Artist, and Photographer

Jonah is a research engineer, 3D artist, and photographer working at Psyop in New York. He is the co-author of Cryptomatte and manages the open source effort surrounding it. After ten years in CG production, he switched to full time software development. He has created many in-house proceduralism tools using Fabric Engine, as well as the open source Arnold shader, JF Nested Dielectric.

Andrew C. Jones, Head of VFX

Andrew is Head of VFX for Psyop in Los Angeles, as well as co-author and inventor of Cryptomatte. Over the course of his career he has worked in various disciplines, from systems and software engineering, to on-set supervision, to creative direction. Previous positions include VFX Supervisor at Method Studios and CTO at Pixel Liberation Front.

The Molecule Presents Invisible

Wednesday, August 2, 9:30 - 6:00PM

Booth 801

Presentation Description

Based on a screenplay by Julina Tatlock and Oscar-winning screenwriter Melisa Wallack, Invisible centers on an heiress’ quest to guard her recently deceased grandfather’s estate and the family's supernatural secrets. The story, told over five, six-minute episodes, marks the first attempt at using virtual reality as an episodic-friendly, storytelling format while challenging many of VR's current known truths.

The Molecule Presents Conan O’Brien VR App

Wednesday, August 2, 9:30 - 6:00PM

Booth 801

Presentation Description

Step inside the world of Conan O’Brien. Originally developed for Comic-Con San Diego, this interactive VR experience lets the viewer see 3D animated Conan Funko Pop! figures on either Conan’s stage or in his office.

TBD

Wednesday, August 2, 9:30 - 6:00PM TBD

Room 409B

Presentation Description

TBD

Find us on the show floor!

Come by our booth 337 to see the latest tools in Shotgun – or just to catch up. We’ll be highlighting Shotgun’s review toolset, creative tool integrations, and more!

Shotgun Review

Presentation Description

Review is a huge part of every VFX and animation pipeline, big or small. Learn how Shotgun’s growing set of cloud-based review tools helps entire teams review and collaborate on media projects across the studio or around the world.

Eli Rarey

Eli Rarey has been working in computer graphics, animation and visual effects for over 20 years. He has worked as a production manager, pipeline developer, and virtual set operator. Before joining the Autodesk team, he was a freelance Shotgun consultant helping studios to optimize their Shotgun pipeline. He is also an award-winning filmmaker.

Shotgun Overview

Presentation Description

See how Shotgun combines review and production tracking tools in a single, secure, and intuitive workflow in the cloud.

Ken LaRue, Technical Marketing Manager, Shotgun

Ken La Rue has been in the computer graphics industry for the past 25 years. He was the Art Director for an advertising company in Chicago for 13 years before jumping into the video and motion graphic industry in 1998. He was the Creative Director for Technical Animations and Video where besides his production of video projects for clients in the corporate world he also wrote, produced and presented training videos and DVDs for both Autodesk Combustion and 3ds Max.

In 2003 he started his own company, The Street Productions, Inc. His company offered consulting, training and services in video, 3D animation, web and graphic design. Ken has also taught compositing and special effect classes at DePaul University in Chicago, IL and a variety of Autodesk resellers and training centers.

Ken joined Autodesk in 2004 as an Application Engineer focused on compositing and editing. Over the years he has been an Application Engineer for Autodesk products such as Combustion, Smoke and Flame. He is currently the Technical Marketing Manager for Flame and Shotgun.

Pipeline Awards

July 26, 5:00 - 6:00 PM

Shotgun Booth 337

Presentation Description

The Pipeline Awards recognize the creative geniuses far behind the screen – the heroes who make laborious processes better and faster for studios of all sizes.

Join us at the Shotgun Booth 337 to toast this year’s winners for excellence in pipeline tool development and contributions that are driving the industry forward.

Kubo and the Two Strings with LAIKA

July 26, 2:00 - 3:00 PM

Room 207D

Presentation Description

Michael Laubach has worked in the entertainment industry for nearly twenty years as a character TD modeler and visual FX artist. In addition to credits on LAIKA's Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012) and The Boxtrolls (2014), he worked for Sony Pictures Imageworks for six years, where he served as facial rigging lead on feature films including Beowulf and Monster House.

Star Trek Beyond with Atomic Fiction

July 27, 2:00PM - 3:00PM

Room 207D

Description

Join Kevin Baillie CEO and VFX Supervisor at Atomic Fiction, as he takes you behind the blockbuster of Star Trek Beyond by exploring sequences deep within the Starship Enterprise.

Kevin Baillie, CEO and VFX Supervisor, Atomic Fiction

Kevin is CEO and VFX Supervisor at Atomic Fiction, an effects company with studios in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Montreal. In the 6 years since co-­founding Atomic Fiction, he has supervised visuals for two Star Trek movies, two Transformers franchise installments, and the award-­winning effects for Robert Zemeckis's live action films,Flight and The Walk. He is currently in production on Zemeckis’ upcoming movie, Allied. Prior to launching Atomic Fiction, Baillie supervised at ImageMovers Digital on cutting-­edge motion capture feature films. Before that, Baillie helmed VFX at The Orphanage on critically-­acclaimed movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Night at the Museum, Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Hellboy.

Kevin is also CEO of ConductorIO, a company breaking new ground by offering high-­capacity, on-­demand rendering to the masses using cloud computing technologies! Baillie's film career began very early on, when he joined Lucasfilm's JAK Films division as a pre-­visualization artist on Star Wars Episode I at the age of 18.

Connecting Creative Teams and Workflows with Shotgun

August 1st, 10:30AM - 11:00AM

August 2nd, 11:30AM - 12:00AM

Description

With powerful production tracking and review tools on a single platform that integrates with the industry’s top creative software, Shotgun makes it easy to connect entire studios, teams, and workflows. In this session, learn how Shotgun can connect everyone on your team to the creative work, each other, and productions as they progress.

Ken LaRue, Technical Marketing Manager, Shotgun

Ken La Rue has been in the computer graphics industry for the past 25 years. He was the Art Director for an advertising company in Chicago for 13 years before jumping into the video and motion graphic industry in 1998. He was the Creative Director for Technical Animations and Video where besides his production of video projects for clients in the corporate world he also wrote, produced and presented training videos and DVDs for both Autodesk Combustion and 3ds Max.

In 2003 he started his own company, The Street Productions, Inc. His company offered consulting, training and services in video, 3D animation, web and graphic design. Ken has also taught compositing and special effect classes at DePaul University in Chicago, IL and a variety of Autodesk resellers and training centers.

Ken joined Autodesk in 2004 as an Application Engineer focused on compositing and editing. Over the years he has been an Application Engineer for Autodesk products such as Combustion, Smoke and Flame. He is currently the Technical Marketing Manager for Flame and Shotgun.

3D to VR Workflows with 3ds Max

August 1st, 11:30AM - 12:00AM

August 2nd, 10:30AM - 11:00AM

Description

VR will soon be a standard part of the digital content creation workflow. Come take a closer look at the latest release of 3ds Max, which lets you create immersive visualization experiences by combining 3D and VR authoring tools (3ds Max Interactive, based on Autodesk Stingray) in one environment. We’re making easier and more accessible for artists like you to take the leap into creating real-time experiences, starting from a familiar place in 3ds Max.

Jose Elizardo

Coming soon!

Accelerating VR Workflows with Shotgun and Nuke

August 1st, 1:00PM - 1:30PM

August 2nd, 4:00PM - 4:30PM

Description

Learn how integration with Shotgun makes it easy to send shots for review, see the latest feedback, and stay in the loop with the rest of your team – without ever leaving Nuke.

Ken LaRue, Technical Marketing Manager, Shotgun

Ken La Rue has been in the computer graphics industry for the past 25 years. He was the Art Director for an advertising company in Chicago for 13 years before jumping into the video and motion graphic industry in 1998. He was the Creative Director for Technical Animations and Video where besides his production of video projects for clients in the corporate world he also wrote, produced and presented training videos and DVDs for both Autodesk Combustion and 3ds Max.

In 2003 he started his own company, The Street Productions, Inc. His company offered consulting, training and services in video, 3D animation, web and graphic design. Ken has also taught compositing and special effect classes at DePaul University in Chicago, IL and a variety of Autodesk resellers and training centers.

Ken joined Autodesk in 2004 as an Application Engineer focused on compositing and editing. Over the years he has been an Application Engineer for Autodesk products such as Combustion, Smoke and Flame. He is currently the Technical Marketing Manager for Flame and Shotgun.

Journey to VR: Creating Our First AR Experience

August 1st, 1:30PM - 2:00PM

August 2nd, 2:00PM - 2:30PM

Description

Resident VR expert Daryl Obert will take us behind-the-scenes on creating his own augmented reality experience, and everything he’s learned along the way.

Daryl Obert

Daryl is a 20-year CG veteran who started working for Alias in 1995 as an application engineer. His current role at Autodesk is Senior Technical Marketing Manager. Daryl is responsible for building many of the presentations used at events such as Siggraph, IBC, and NAB. He has spent his career working with clients, ensuring their success at implementing Autodesk® technology. In addition to his role at Autodesk, Daryl was an adjunct faculty member at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where he taught rendering and special effects.

Arnold and Motion Graphics

August 1st, 2:30PM - 3:00PM

Description

Motion Graphics tools in Maya 2018 combined with the rendering power of Arnold 5 makes motion graphics, look development and motion design a fun, artistic endeavor. Both tools facilitate fast, flexible workflows to arrive at anything you can imagine.

Steven Roselle, Sr. Maya Technical Specialist at Autodesk

Steven Roselle has over 20 years of experience in the media and entertainment industry. Before joining Alias and later Autodesk, he worked on a diverse array of projects ranging from visualization to motion graphics to game development. In his current role at Autodesk as a Maya focused, Sr. Technical Specialist, Steven acts as a liaison between content creators and the Autodesk product development teams. In this capacity, he has had the opportunity to work with a long list of high profile accounts including studios at Disney, WB, EA, Sony and Activision. As a Maya evangelist, Steven maintains a diverse expertise in various aspects of 3D production, including modeling, rigging, animation and rendering, as well as tool customization and general workflow optimization.

Maya and Arnold 5 Workflow

August 2nd, 1:30PM - 2:00PM

Description

This session covers an interactive workflow with Maya 2018 and Arnold 5. From nParticles, MASH proceduralism, Arnold StandIns and Curve rendering to IES lights and atmospherics, the feedback from Arnold is keeping up with the edits made in Maya. Additionally, we feature Arnold’s memory efficiency and how it can benefit every user and every production by rendering truly amazing volumes of geometry.

Marcel de Jong

At Autodesk, Marcel is focused on products used in Film and Television production and has worked with studios such as Disney, Pixar, ILM, and a range of medium sized VFX studios. In VFX he started as a consultant for studios like Dream Quest Images and Warner Digital. Production experience or credits on films like Inspector Gadget and Pirates of the Caribbean. His background and training are in industrial design and he has done design work for studios such as Hauser Design and Honda R&D. His designs have been published in “ID magazine”, “CGW”, “Innovation”, and “Popular Mechanics”. He was a co-winner of the 1999 IDSA Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) and studied at UT Arlington and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He is also co-founder of Gnomon, School of Visual FX.

Boldly into Virtual Reality: The Molecule’s Journey with VR

August 2nd, 2:30PM - 3:00PM

Description

With over 25 VR experiences under their belt and many more scheduled in the coming months, The Molecule is living proof that the immersive medium opens doors to both creativity and opportunity. Learn how they’ve boldly made the leap into virtual reality and never looked back.

Chris Healer

After finishing his film degree at CU Boulder, having built a 16mm projector out of Legos and written a 3D graphics library for DOS in C++, Chris Healer transitioned from web design to motion capture and 3D animation in Denver. He moved to New York in 2002, and in 2005 founded The Molecule (http://www.themolecule.com)

At The Molecule, he is CEO, CTO, Visual Effects Supervisor, VFX Consultant, Creative Designer, Software Developer, and Producer. He has worked on a variety of film and television projects, including “Elementary” (CBS), The Wall (Amazon/Doug Liman), and most recently, “Lincoln In the Bardo,” a VR experience for The New York Times based on the novel by George Saunders.

The Molecule maintains offices in NYC and LA and employs over 80 people. Its specialties include live-action compositing, VR post-production, motion graphics animation, CG modeling, animation and rendering, as well as traditional film production, VR production, and second unit VFX production.

Chris has developed many of the tools used at The Molecule, including its Render Farm, Workflow Automation Tools, Linking and Preview Tools, and Cloud-based Compositing Pipeline. Chris is a regular speaker at Nuke, ACM SIGGRAPH, and VES Events and an active member of the Visual Effects community.